Interdisciplinary Minor in Global Sustainability
Senior Seminar
University of California, Irvine June
1997
"What is man without the beast? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are interconnected. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth...If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves...Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." (Perry, 1971)
Like many eager non native environmentalists, waiting to be engulfed by the green revolution, I saw the Indigenous culture as a link that could bring me closer to the earth. I believed that the generation of biodiversity could only occur now with the conjuctive efforts and knowledge of Native Americans (Indigenous Americans) and non native environmentalists. The culture and philosophies of Native Americans serving as a basis for an alternative way of living. All this as I sat mesmerized listening to Chief Seattle’s eloquent speech on the film "HOME". (Letter to All the People, Chief Seattle)
It was hard to realize eventually, that the foundations to my advocation of enviro-indigenous relations was based on my romantic notion that Indigenous peoples and cultures are the epidemy of perfect human civilization. What do we have beyond the romantic ideals and myths created of Native Americans that would give us a practical, realistic, objective basis to why we should emphasis, to such a degree, the importance on Native Americans to the present environmental struggle?
With the curiosity to know what the popular political opinions were amongst the public,
I willingly exposed myself to an open forum on the Politics Chatroom and asked the question, "How is Native American culture essential in our present goal to save planet Earth?"
There are pro’s and con’s both equally convincing.
Their actions contradict their philosophies. Many of them are caught in capitalist games, paying retributions at the cost of the land and the environment of which they own.
With the federal government’s support, many Native tribes have constructed Native Governments and Corporations where the rights to land and money are placed to their own responsibility. What this actually means is that the rights of the people’s land and monetary bonds are transferred from governmental trust to
the hands of businessmen, laying everything out on the market. Unfamiliar with the ways of politics and economics, tribal communities would initially be supportive of the idea that they finally have the land to themselves and may be able to uses it without governmental surveyance. In many cases, mismanagement of business lead to dead ends and bankrupcies. Heavy in dept, the rights to the land goes to creditors ready to expoit. In a particular case, the Navajo Forest Products Industry (NFPI), who occupied forest land that was almost depleted of old growth, conducted logging of younger trees until the forest was devastated. Normally, such plans would have to go through Washington’s Bureau of Indian Affairs via EIS, ESA, etc. to meet several requirements prior to approval. According to BIA’s reasoning, NFPI was exempted from having to conduct an audit or EIS. They considered that native land was technically a soveriegn nation, thus it was unnecessary to regulate. Ironically, they were promoting the increase of reservation logging. (LaDuke)
"...we must find the native biocentrists within each tribe as opposed to giving blanket support to all native people regardless of their stance on the environment, especially the often corrupt band in their cultures."
(Orton, David)
Ultimately, Dine’ CARE, a Navajo environmental organization, succeeded in their protest against NFPI and the BIA, though unfortunately after the mysterious death of Leroy Jackson, the man who spearheaded Dine’CARE. Thus, with these key biocentric individuals who were unwilling to loose their land, culture, and future to corrupt capatalists, NFPI finally agreed to conduct an audit and an EIS to its loggin plan.
The idea that indigenous peoples have knowledge to offer us in termes of promoting biodiversity is a concept made up to maintain the idealized myth that’s been created of the People. Anything they know is primitive and has no sound scientific foundation.
"Agricultural research for the most part, has been highly reductionist, parochial, and discipline-oriented (Richards, 1989). Normal science generates packages, whereas resource-poor families engage in farming as a continuous performance. Research station technologies have focused primarily on attaining high yield of target crops. The introduction of high energy technologies through application of chemical fertilizers, agrochemicals, machinery, and modern methods of irrigation in developing countries was a departure from traditional agriculture and has led to pollution and land degradation (Ezaza, 1989)." (Rajasekaran, 1993)
How much of a positive affect can Native Americans have on modern America? Their race has come a long way and most of their knowledge has probably already diffused from their culture.
On the contrary, they do have the potential to play a very positive role. As of the end this decade, Native Americans indigenous to Canada will own about one third of the total region. Their decisions as to how the land is to be used will affect everyone resident to the region. It is in the best interests of environmentalists to work in conjuction, as far as planning and management in concerned, to avoid situations like the destruction of the Dine’ Forest in California. Also, up until recently, indigenous agriculture strategies has not been recognized by leading modern agriculturist. Presently, Universities all over the world turn to traditional methods of horticulture and forest management indigenous farmers have adopted over generations of living off the land.
"...In order for agriculture to be successful, ...farmers must adopt or develop the plant varieties that will produce abundantly and consistently within the environmental limitations of their regions. They must also develop farming techniques that will enable them to use the physical and climatic characteristics of their region to the best advantage. Nowhere among the Indians farmers were these requirements met more successfully than among the prehistoric agriculturists in the Southwest." (Hurt, 1987)
"Development thus insist that the (industrial) human state of being is an evolutionary achievement over, above, and beyond other states of being, and that the purpose and destiny of Earth and its non-human occupants is to be remade in the human image." (Livingston, 1994)
There are those that question the purpose of even attempting to restore biodiversity. The whole idea of restoring the earth to a more primitive sustainable form seems almost anti-evolutionary. Even if one is to decide on restoring land to its primitive state, what point in time would be considered an ideal starting point (model), since the state of the environment then may have been a consequence of more primitive human selection. This brings me to my conclusion. True, mass extinction has occurred as a result of human over activity. Most likely, the earth will continue to evolve even after this particular era of life dies out. The earth will change according to the flux of nature. It is my opinion that we need to restore the environment only to ultimately salvage our own existence. How far into the past we decide to use as models of restoration cannot go beyond the realities of our capabilities. In my my own opinion, I emphasize the importance of Indigenous Peoples. Although they were no less capable of destructive behavior, loss of biodiversity occurred at a much lower rate. Over centuries, they’ve become specialists on earth conscious methods of land use. We have a lot to learn form Indigenous People. Being that ‘all roads lead to Rome’, enviro-indigenous relations is one of the possible many alternatives to addressing Environmental Restoration.
Native American Grassroot Movements: http://conbio.bio.uci.edu/grossman.html
Native Americans and the Environment: http://conbio.bio.uci.edu/naer
North West Fisheries Commission: http://www.nidlink.com/~bobhard/seattle.html
NAMCOR: http://www.namcor.com/
The Dilemma of Indian Forestry. Winona LaDuke. Earth Island Journal. Summer 1994.
Http://www.indians.org/library/ifor.html
Animal Rights and Native Culture. Ted Altar.
Rethinking the Environment. Orton, David. Green Web Bulletin #43. 1996
Hurt, Douglas R. Indian Agriculture in America. University Press of Kansas.
Lawrence, Kansas. 1987.
Feher-Elston, Catherine. Children of Sacred Ground. Northland Publishing. Flagstaff, AZ. 1988.
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